


to trust your own true mind

by ShippingEverything



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: (i'm not joking do not spoil yourself), Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, if you haven't done s8m27 then you shouldnt even LOOK at this fic for too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingEverything/pseuds/ShippingEverything
Summary: MAJOR ZRS8 SPOILERSIn which Janine De Luca goes through about two stages of grief and then tries to skip right to the end





	to trust your own true mind

**Author's Note:**

> must a fic be in character? is it not enough to simply want janine de luca to be sad? also yes the title is from spring awakening (_Those You've Known_, specifically) because sometimes you have to go back to your roots
> 
> anyway, this fic Obviously deals w janine finding tom's body so like, there's some talk of blood and bullet wounds and obviously death so! be warned, beware, be wary!
> 
> but most importantly, enjoy!

When the laird tells her, rushing in alongside Paula in a panic, Janine’s first instinct is disbelief. _Surely_ he’s misunderstood, surely he’s wrong, surely he’s just trying to mislead or distract her; after all, Tom said this morning that the laird is the probable leader of the skincoats, that he’s figured it all out. Tom had told her, just this very morning, that he was going on a mission with Five to try and get more evidence, so they could convince the townsfolk to overthrow the laird and the skincoats in one fell swoop. Tom’s good at _people_ and figuring them out, always has been, so she trusts his judgement. Besides, after all they’ve been through, Tom wouldn’t, Tom _couldn’t_-

Janine clears her throat and follows the laird and Paula out anyway. Her thoughts insist _No, he’s _Tom_, he wouldn’t_ over and over until she nearly believes it, that nothing like that could happen to them now. She still pushes her weakened body as much as she can. Still, her top speed can barely match a runner’s walking speed now, and Jody and Sam beat her to the spot the laird mentioned by a country mile. When she catches up with them, she’s _almost _expecting something different.

There’s a part of her -- a not insignificant part, if she’s being honest -- that’s ready to see Tom on the grass, rubbing at his head as Jody fusses over him, a bit stunned but willing and able to set off and go give Five backup, just like normal. She can imagine turning to Paula with a grin, not quite saying _I Told You So_ aloud but allowing it to be heard anyway, then snapping handcuffs on the foiled laird, but then they reach Sam and Jody and-

It’s wrong.

She can hear them before she sees them, in retrospect. At the moment, she hadn’t realized that the broken, almost animalistic noises where sobs ripping their way out Jody’s frame, but when she crests the hill and can finally see them, the two- wait, _three_ of them, it’s clear that’s what it was. She sees Sam, hand pressed over his mouth and looking at her like he is so, _so_ sorry. She sees Jody, bent over a crumpled form with knees wet from the dark puddle she’s knelt in. Then her eyes drift down, down, lower than they _should_, and finally she sees him.

She opens her mouth, wants to say something or ask something or _something_, but the words are all stuck in her throat. Her breath catches, once, twice, then again and again until she can’t breathe at all.

It happens with such quickness, such complete helplessness that she is sure of only one thing: She is Janine De Luca, and she is _dying_.

Not in the slow, eventual way that everyone is from the moment they take their first breath; not in the adrenaline pumping way that she once was, when every movement in enemy territory was courting death; not even in the quick, incapacitating way that she’s been since Jones injected her. No, she is dying right here, right now, the life spilling out of her as she jolts forward, ripping her arm away from Paula and letting the momentum propel her towards Jody and the body, stumbling and clumsy.

_You’re already dead_, her brain tells her, _You have to be, you must be,_ because this morning she had told Tom not to take unnecessary risks, as she has every time one of them has left the other for the past two years, and he had said _“Of course not, Jane”_ just like always, because it’s not supposed to be like this again. Her life is spilling out of her every moment, a drain left unstopped, because Tom De Luca is lying on the grass in front of her, stiff and empty, eyes nearly as wide as the bullet hole through his forehead.

She arrives at his side a ghost, the press of her hand having no effect on Jody’s shoulder, and looks at him. He looks- shocked. Surprised, like he missed a step in a dance and never got the opportunity to get back on beat. He looks like he didn’t mean for this to happen, and isn’t that an empty relief -- when, even before the world came to an end, have either of them meant for _any_ of it to happen? To think each other lost, to be hunting each other down, to be dying- to be _dead-_

Janine places a hand over her brother’s eyes to close them. She stands up. She is Janine De Luca and her soul lies cooling on the ground, but she has responsibilities. Whoever did this is still at large, possibly endangering Five. She will not allow another death to happen today, so she has to push through.

Later, she can think about this and do something with Tom’s body, but for now she takes a deep breath in and holds it. She gives herself exactly two seconds to compartmentalize and when she lets the breath out and opens the eyes that she hadn’t even noticed slipping closed, she is ready. She is Colonel Janine De Luca and there _will_ be justice.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second Reaction Fic i've done for zr and both of them have had to do with janine being Incredibly sad... it seems that im Most drawn to write when i'm making my wife janine de luca cry/almost cry


End file.
